WILTSHIRE Ambulance Service has the worst record in England for reaching emergencies, new figures revealed.

Only 55.7 per cent of the 10,400 immediately life threatening calls received by staff were reached in the Government target of eight minutes.

Ministers had set a goal of arriving at the scene of 75 per cent of category A emergencies within the target time.

Nationwide, the average was 75.7 per cent in 2003/4.

Wiltshire reached 89 per cent of emergencies in 19 minutes, compared to an average of 93.9 per cent.

For non-life threatening emergencies, it also missed the target of reaching the scene of 95 per cent of incidents in 19 minutes for a rural area.

Wiltshire, classed as a rural area, managed 87.7 per cent for category B and C incidents. The national average was 87.5 per cent.

Health Minister Rosie Winterton acknowledged that improvements were still needed on some emergency calls.

"We know there is lots more work to do and that performance against the non-life threatening targets must improve," she said.

Ambulance services have called for the category C (the lowest priority emergencies) target to be clarified and the Government is thought to be looking at the options.

Moves are underway to bring extra focus to dealing with category B and C calls, the Department of Health said.

This is the latest blow for the Wiltshire service, which had its official two star rating from the Commission for Health Improvement slashed to zero in March last year.

At the time Tim Skelton, the then acting chief executive of Wiltshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust said part of the blame lies with communication problems surrounding the ambulance control centre in Devizes.

He pledged the situation would improve. "Urgent discussions are in hand with the ambulance control software supplied in order to continue to improve the data quality and to provide management information to support performance improvement."

Wiltshire Ambulance Service said no-one was available to comment. A statement will be issued later.